Fans from all over the world are using social media to share their passion for sports. Sports marketing organisation IMG researched recently what social media channels NBA-, college basketball-, college football-, NFL-, MLB- and soccer-fans from the United States, Brazil and the United Kingdom use.
Facebook Number One
Facebook is the number one social media channel among fans to discuss sports. 73% of the sport lovers use Facebook, 54% uses YouTube to find video highlights and funny bloopers, 37% express their opinion via Twitter. One-third of the fans use Google+, while Instagram claims the fifth spot with 18%.
During game day, Twitter is used the most (6%), followed by Facebook (4.3%), Instagram (2.6%) and YouTube (1.4%).
Especially pre-game excitement makes sport fans active on social media, while more than two-third of sport fanatics use channels like YouTube and Facebook to find historic data and pictures from the past, while bloopers are also very popular. Fans who are not visiting the game in the stadium are also very active during the game, discussing the highlights and lowlights and expressing their opinions about the teams and players.
Key Source
The report of IMG shows that the importance of social media as a key source for sport fans continues to grow and social media also offer interesting business opportunities for sport teams, since two-third of the sport fans use social network platforms to receive promotions or offers from their favourite team. It also offers a good opportunity for consumer brands are align themselves with sport teams, but the consumer brands should contact the sport lovers not too frequently and the information the brands provide should be relevant.
Just like normal consumers, sport fans are very much interested in the ‘what’s in it for me’, the research by IMG shows. 61% of the researched fans are willing to like a brand if they get a discount or a coupon, while 53% will hit Facebook’s ‘Like Button’ if they can win a prize in a contest that is related to sport. Around 70% of the fans is willing to take action, such as talking about the brand or purchasing a product, after liking a brand.
(Sources: Catalyst PR, Sports Business Journal)
